Former ABC South-East Asia correspondent Zoe Daniel looks at the Cambodia refugee proposal and the issues already facing the country.

When the so-called Malaysia solution was announced by the Labor government in 2011, I called a contact in Kuala Lumpur to ask what the local reaction was.

"Are they insane?" the contact responded incredulously.

Then followed a vigorous campaign by legal and human rights activists against the proposal to swap asylum seekers from Australia for proven refugees, which eventually fell over when the High Court found the Australian Government could not guarantee the safety of those sent to Malaysia.

The Coalition Government's apparent approach to Cambodia along similar lines is short on detail.

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop barely confirmed that she even asked the Cambodian government to consider taking refugees from Australia.

The reaction from human rights advocates in the country echoed the criticisms made around the Malaysia solution.

In both cases, the critics point to the inability of Australia to ensure the wellbeing of people sent to another country.

Refugees remain powerless against corruption

As has been well documented on Nauru and Manus Island, dictating standards to a foreign government is no easy task, whether the people involved will be held in detention or not.

In the case of Malaysia, the key concerns were that there are already more than 100,000 known refugees in the country who have no right to work and no right to education for their children.

Even with acknowledged refugee status, they remain powerless against corrupt immigration officials who subject them to constant extortion and intimidation.

Malaysia is a moderate, majority Muslim country which is highly racially diverse. And with some important checks and balances inserted - such us signing up to (and following) the International Refugee Convention and allowing refugees work rights - the idea could possibly have actually worked.

Cambodia is one of only two countries in South-East Asia that is a signatory to the convention already, with the other being the Philippines. That is one important box ticked, but it is not part of the usual refugee route.

Two well-publicised cases in the past few years - one involving persecuted Uighur from China seeking asylum in Cambodia in 2009, and another involving minority people from Vietnam - have resulted in people being returned to where they came from without their cases being heard.

More recently, Rohingya from Myanmar, also known as Burma, have been settled in Cambodia, but there were less than two dozen of them.

One-fifth of Cambodians live in poverty, children malnourished

Cambodia is a country of only 14 million people. At least 20 per cent of its population live in poverty and almost half of all children are malnourished.

Poor people are routinely evicted from their homes and beaten by police to allow for development and then inadequately compensated or even jailed.

Of late, thousands have protested on the street over the results of an election held in the middle of last year, won by the government but disputed by the opposition.

The opposition continues to boycott parliament. The government of strongman Hun Sen is suddenly wobbly.

Recent protests by garment workers over low wages have been violently stifled by authorities.

There are increasing crackdowns on freedom of speech. Journalists have been killed for writing stories involving powerful business interests.

Corruption is the worst in South-East Asia, according to the Transparency International index. Cambodia sits in 160th place out of 177 countries surveyed worldwide.

If the Malaysia solution was complicated enough, this will be tricky in a much less developed country with fewer resources and a much needier home population.

It is likely that part of this discussion is linked to foreign aid.

Ms Bishop and the Government have made clear that foreign aid will be heavily wound back. Aid that is distributed needs to achieve a return.

Australia is one of Cambodia's largest donors, giving $90 million annually, and that is aid that Cambodia cannot afford to lose.

If this is, in fact, a bargaining chip, Mr Hun Sen and his government will seriously consider this proposal, particularly if the number of refugees involved is small - which seems to be the case.

The other question that needs to be asked is, has the Australian Government floated a similar idea to other countries in the region to take refugees as part of a plan to disperse those who meet refugee criteria within communities across the region?

Ms Bishop also visited the Philippines, Vietnam and Malaysia on this trip.

Zoe Daniel was the ABC's South-East Asia correspondent from 2010 to 2013 and has worked extensively in Cambodia. She spent 2009 covering the Khmer Rouge war crimes trials from Phnom Penh.